Video tour of Dana Point breaks State of City routine

Dana Point Mayor Steven Weinberg speaks at the State of the City luncheon Thursday before presenting a video highlighting the city's sights and events. BRITTANY LEVINE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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A chef at the Laguna Cliffs Resort & Spa prepares lunch at Dana Point's State of the City event Thursday. BRITTANY LEVINE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Mayor Steven Weinberg, left, presents a proclamation to Jim Samuels, general manager at the Laguna Cliffs Resort & Spa, for the hotel's dedication to the city. BRITTANY LEVINE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Nicole Chambers, chief executive of the Dana Point Chamber of Commerce, stands with Dan Stetson, chief executive of the Ocean Institute, as he accepts a beautification award from the chamber during the State of the City luncheon. BRITTANY LEVINE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Dana Point Mayor Steven Weinberg speaks at the State of the City luncheon Thursday before presenting a video highlighting the city's sights and events. BRITTANY LEVINE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

For 16 minutes, Dana Point Mayor Steven Weinberg turned into a city tour guide at a State of the City luncheon Thursday.

Rather than presenting information about city finances and other topics typical of such events, Weinberg played a video showing the sights of Dana Point, from the beach to the climbing bluffs, for an audience of about 200 at the Laguna Cliffs Resort & Spa.

"I could have turned this into a presentation about how hotel revenue is down, sales tax is down, property tax is down, but that, to me, is a negative message," Weinberg said in an interview before his presentation. "We have issues to tackle every day, but we still run a five-star city."

At last year's State of the City event, which is run by the Chamber of Commerce, then-Mayor Lisa Bartlett told of difficult financial times and the city's revenue-generating plans.

But in his video, Weinberg describes the city's history and narrates footage from recent events such as the Festival of Whales and the Dana Point Grand Prix of Cycling. At the end of the video, he shows up dressed in yellow bike gear and silver sunglasses.

Among the few questions from the audience at the end of the event was, "Where'd you get those glasses?"

In the video, Weinberg also tours the city-run funicular, an outdoor elevator on tracks that the city opened to the public in December at Dana Strand. There's a shot of him riding the device down to the beach.

"She's not a speed burner, but it's an easy way to get down," Weinberg says in the video.

He also discusses the city's building plan for Town Center and briefly talks about plans to overhaul Dana Point Harbor to increase business potential.

The cost of the video, which took weeks to make and features aerial shots from a helicopter, wasn't immediately available. But Lynn Kelly, a city staff member who helped create it, said she believes the cost was slim because the helicopter was donated by the Orange County Fire Authority and the video was shot by a company contracted by the city to produce TV broadcasts of City Council meetings.

The video, a first for Dana Point, will be available soon on the city's website, danapoint.org, Kelly said.

Cities such as Irvine, Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel have shot videos to replace their typical State of the City addresses, Kelly said.

"We wanted to portray a positive message," Weinberg said. "The city's healthy; the city has money in the bank. We haven't cut police or fire services. We haven't laid off city staff."

However, the city has implemented a case-by-case hiring freeze that Weinberg said demonstrates how the city is better managing its resources.

The video also touches on residents' perceptions of city staff members, all of whom have had customer-service training this year, Weinberg said. The city commissioned a local consulting firm to survey 400 residents. According to the survey, 53.8 percent found city staff "very helpful" and more than two-thirds said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the city's quality of life.

"People may think we're going to hell in a handbasket," Weinberg said before screening the video. "But we're not in deep doo-doo."

In a part of the video shot at tide pools, Weinberg, wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a floppy hat placed on his knee, says: "It's peaceful, it's clean. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else except in this city."

The city has pushed to make a more multimedia-friendly website, but Weinberg said that wasn't his main goal in making the video. He added that the city plans to put recordings of all City Council meetings online soon.

At Thursday's event, the Chamber of Commerce presented the following beautification awards:

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